Missing person cases led to busy year for Sask. search and rescue teams

It’s not yet known how busy 2023 was for Saskatchewan search and rescue teams, but it’s now known that 2022 was historic for them.

According to media liaison Dustin Brears, 2022 was the busiest on record.

“In 2021, our volunteers went out on 14 searches and put in just over 1,000 search hours. 2022 was the busiest year we’ve ever seen in this province for search and rescue,” Brears said on The Evan Bray Show on Tuesday. “Our teams went out to 26 searches and volunteered over 6,000 hours looking for missing individuals.”

Brears suggested the reason why there were so many search hours logged was because of how long some of the searches were.

“Some of your listeners might remember the mushroom picker out by Smeaton. It was a multi-day search that spanned in the forest over multiple days,” he said.

“Right after that, the teams went up into northeastern Saskatchewan within hours. It really stretched our volunteer resources, but I think that’s why the numbers got so high. (The searches) spanned over multiple days.”

Lois Chartrand was last seen Aug. 4, 2022 in the area around the Hanson Lake Road north of Smeaton. Tragically, her body was found 10 days later.

Another reason why the number of searches in 2022 could be much higher is because search and rescue teams have been helping out police with searching for evidence in cases.

“We’ve been doing it a lot more lately – maybe just (as a way to) follow the crime rate trend going up with offensive weapons and firearms that get discarded after an offence,” Sgt. Rene Giroux told Bray. “We have been called upon by the Major Crime Unit to look for evidence in general. It’s happened all across the province.”

But Giroux notes the teams’ success rate hasn’t been high when relying on the volunteers.

“The success rate is fairly low on that. We rely on information received at the time and sometimes the informant can be questionable to us as for why they want us to search one area more than the other. We aren’t always successful on that part,” Giroux explained.

Brears mentioned their teams are trained just like RCMP officers and they’re always looking for volunteers. He encouraged those who are interested to reach out and join the group of volunteers.